Digestive System Essay

Digestive system
Your digestive system gears up
A fresh-baked apple pie has just come out of the oven. Just the sight and smell of it are enough to make you start salivating. So even before you take a bite, your digestive system has swung into action.
After the first morsel enters your mouth, the many organs of your digestive tract kick into high gear. Here's a look at how your digestive system works, from top to bottom.
Mouth and salivary glands
After you take your first bite of pie, your salivary glands produce saliva — a mixture of secretions that help lubricate and break down food. Besides the salivary glands in the lining of your mouth, you have three pairs of larger salivary glands — the parotid, sublingual and submandibular glands. You typically produce about 2 pints (about 1 liter) of saliva a day.
Not all of the work is chemical, though. As you savor the bite of pie, your teeth work to break down the pie while your tongue mixes it with saliva. This action transforms it into a soft, moist, rounded mass (bolus) suitable for swallowing.
Esophagus
As you swallow the bite of pie, muscles in your mouth and throat propel it to your upper esophagus, the tube that connects your throat to your stomach. Muscles in the wall of your esophagus create synchronized waves — one after another — that propel the pie into your stomach. In this process, called peristalsis, muscles behind the bolus of pie contract, squeezing it forward, while muscles ahead of it relax, allowing it to advance without resistance.
When the bolus reaches the lower end of your esophagus, pressure from the food signals a muscular valve — the lower esophageal sphincter — to relax and let the food enter your stomach.
Stomach
After entering your stomach, the pie is broken down further. With its powerful muscles, the stomach begins churning and mixing the food into smaller and smaller pieces. Your digestive glands in your stomach lining produce stomach acid and enzymes, which mix with the food to form a murky semifluid or paste called chyme.
Once the chyme is well-mixed, waves of muscle contractions propel it through a valve called the pylorus and into the first section of your small intestine (duodenum). The pylorus might release about an eighth of an ounce (about 4 milliliters) of chyme at a time. The rest is held back for more mixing.
Pancreas, liver and gallbladder
In your duodenum, digestion continues as chyme from the stomach mixes with a variety of digestive juices from your pancreas, liver and gallbladder:
Pancreas. The pancreas produces digestive enzymes that help break down proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
Liver. The liver produces bile, a solution that helps you digest fats.

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Essay On Digestive System